


Pictures at an Exhibition

by ms_cataclysm



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Book: Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, Bujold Ficathon 2015, Gen, Pre-Canon, Time Period: First Cetagandan War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 14:05:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6242353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_cataclysm/pseuds/ms_cataclysm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of the loot from the Cetagandan bunker goes on display at the Imperial War museum. Professora Vorthys writes the catalogue.</p><p>as requested by biichan</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pictures at an Exhibition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [biichan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/biichan/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [biichan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/biichan/pseuds/biichan) in the [Bujold_Ficathon_2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Bujold_Ficathon_2015) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Various artifacts and treasures from the Secret Cetagandan Bunker of Ill-Gotten Goods are finally put on display as a public exhibit.

Extracts from the Imperial War Museum catalogue for the Memories of the Resistance Exhibition 

Each of these exhibits has stories to tell us. Not only do they show us how our ancestors lived but they also shed light on the changing attitudes of the Cetagandan invaders to Barrayar and the progress of the war.

At first the Cetagandan authorities tried to discourage their soldiers from collecting Barrayaran souvenirs. There were well-founded concerns that much of the money from the sale of black market antiquities was being channelled to the Barrayaran resistance as well as concerns over soldiers endangering themselves or breaching military discipline during looting. 

Although the regulations against looting and black market activities were never actually withdrawn, active enforcement became rare and then ceased altogether. By the end of the occupation, virtually all of the Cetagandan High Command had amassed sizeable collections of Barrayaran antiquities. Fine art, porcelain, military souvenirs and “Voriana” were particularly popular. 

The black market was so lucrative that some of the surviving vor households and museums smuggled their treasures out to the workshops of resistance craftsmen for copying. This operation was central to the finances of the resistance and participation does not always appear to have been entirely voluntary. Participation was encouraged by a small cadre of artistic and aristocratic vor youths including the future General Gregor Vorkraft and Lord Dono Vorrutyer (“the Barrayaran Escher”).   
Some art treasures were also smuggled off world to pay for galactic military aid. Regrettably, some of these treasures also appear to have been copies and the originals have been lost. Whether these were sold clandestinely to offworld collectors, destroyed in war or quietly returned to their original owners, we may never know.

In the miniatures gallery, we have a display of courting miniatures by the famous “Darkoi Baba”, Helena Vorlakial. These courting miniatures would have been sent with the babas to potential suitors. During the time of isolation, travel was difficult and the art of photography had been lost. So the babas would often make sketches of their customers. Helena Vorlakial was not the first baba to paint miniatures of her customers but she was by far the most gifted of the baba miniaturists. During her lifetime, the Darkoi baba earned enough from her paintings to dower herself and marry a vor husband of the collateral Vorlakial line. 

These beautiful miniatures were understandably popular with the Cetagandans as romantic gifts with local colour. They were also cheap to ship home to lovers and wives back on Cetaganda because of their low weight and small size. Hundreds were found in the bunker cache under Ladderback Close. Many more were probably shipped back to Cetaganda. 

The miniatures were equally popular with the talented resistance forgers –even if two obviously similar copies came to light, it was well known that the babas often made several portraits of particularly marriageable sitters or would paint more than one family member. The somewhat stylised conventions of the genre made it particularly easy to invent plausible forgeries.

On the left wall, we have several miniatures of Lady Ellen Vorlightly, the future wife of Emperor Vlad Vorbarra. Lady Ellen was a very wealthy and politically important heiress and it is believed that the Darkoi Baba painted at least half a dozen miniatures of her. 

In the first miniature, (which appears by kind permission of the Louvre Museum on Earth), Lady Ellen is crowned with a wreath of maple leaves, which suggests that this particular miniature was prepared for a potential suitor in the Vorkosigan family. This miniature has been authenticated by experts both on Earth and Barrayar.

The group of three miniatures on the immediate right were recovered from the Cetagandan bunker under Ladderback Close. They show Lady Ellen in similar poses with flower crowns in the colours of other vor houses. The similarity with the Louvre portrait is striking and it appears that these were copied from it, but whether by the Darkoi Baba herself, one of her pupils or by a resistance forger is not clear. Some of you may have seen the recent vid series presented by Professora Ekaterin Vorfolse “The guerrilla painters” which explores this controversy more fully. Copies of the vid disc are available from the museum gift shop.

If these are resistance forgeries, then it is likely that they date from the early years of the occupation when the forgers had access to plentiful supplies of secondhand canvasses of the correct period and were more careful. By the end of the occupation, supplies of suitable canvas were running low and the forgers working conditions had become very difficult. 

The group on the far right are believed to be late period forgeries. By this time, many of the original resistance forgers were dead. The Vorkosigan Vashnoi group had been killed in the nuclear attack on that city. The groups in Darkoi and Bonsanklar both suffered in the famines and flu epidemics that decimated the civilian population in the wake of the Cetagandan invasion. Young men and women were drafted for the infamous Cetagandan labour brigades or were forced into hiding to escape the drafts.

The remaining forgers were a mixture of children and elderly people, mostly drawn from the original craftsmen’s families. They worked under the most difficult conditions. There was no spare fuel for heating the workshops; the painters could work by daylight only. Art supplies had to be improvised from the most primitive ingredients. 

By now the forgers were working mainly from copies of copies of originals. Copying errors were made. For example, miniature 8 shows a later version of the Vorlightly coat of arms than the one used in Lady Ellen’s time. 

Despite these problems, the forgers continued their work very successfully until the end of the war in perhaps one of the strangest contributions to the resistance of the entire war.

Professora Helen Vorthys


End file.
